


Thugs in Love

by LLitchi



Category: Kyou Kara Ore Wa
Genre: Fake Dating, First Time, Gay Panic, M/M, Set in the 80s guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLitchi/pseuds/LLitchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So this girl, right? It all started with her, because she wanted proof, so what could he do, not eat Itou’s face off? The next thing you knew, the idiot kappa wanted to take <i>responsibility</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thugs in Love

**Author's Note:**

> (Privately, I will never get tired of this trope.)
> 
> Disclaimer: if Kyou Kara Ore Wa was mine I would have made them fuck like bunnies ten chapters in and alienate all of Shounen Sunday readers and that’s really why I don’t own Kyou Kara Ore Wa. Or work in publishing.
> 
> So I was watching School 2013 and I don’t remember who but somebody dubbed it “thugs in love” and it’s super accurate. Also, “thugs in love,” so naturally I thought of this (literally nonexistent) fandom.
> 
> Go watch School 2013 y’all, it’s ultra gay.

Itou--in his head, Takashi called him Itou because somewhere in one of her “come to terms with your own emotions San-chan” lectures Riko had frowned and told him that he only ever called Itou ‘kappa’ when he’s feeling particularly affectionate, and he told her to fuck off, but then Itou was there, and proceeded to smirk every time Takashi called him ‘kappa,’ or worse, he would get this soft smile and duck his head like ‘kappa’ was emotionally constipated people’s speak for _darling_ or _chestnut_ or _doll_ or other assortments of puke-inducing endearments.

Anyway, Itou. The fucker loitered around the school gate like some second rate delinquent trying to bum smokes off of fresh meat or like some lovesick nerd waiting to confess to a girl, except he’d already got Kyoko and was apparently into monogamy, and it was before class, not after school when the chess club nerds and wannabee delinquents do that emasculating shit. He’s got this paranoid twitch and looked around once every five seconds, so Takashi decided to slip quiet like into the trashcan--it’s beginning of the day, okay? The truck had just picked up yesterday’s illegal contraband literally minutes ago--and either go “boo” or go with a reference to the fucker’s squirrelly woodland heritage. With any luck he’ll get to see first-hand someone doing CPR and accompany his beloved friend on the ambulance.

Itou just yelled at him while clutching at his chest. Figures. He threatened to follow up on some threats to cut off Takashi’s twice a week pity lunch or whatever, all par for the course.

“Come on,” Takashi whacked Itou with his backpack, “Let’s go, I don’t want to miss the bastard’s face when he sees what we did to the chair. Fucker shouldn’t have crossed me.” The bastard was teaching them chemistry, and as such had no business using Takashi as soon-to-be high school dropout slash life failure exhibit A. Or Itou as spoiled brat exhibit C, for that matter. And Takashi’s going to stop right now, because down that path lay ‘only I get to call him spoiled brat.’

Itou squawked, “What do you mean _we_? That was all you,” he looked suddenly nervous again, “Right, anyway, I need a favor.”

So at this point, right? Here’s what Takashi should have done: he should have laughed in Itou’s face and stalked off, because the legendary Mitsuhashi in the context of doing a favor--not for his mom, who was scary as shit, and not in the service of getting laid--was preposterous. He could have avoided the ensuing trouble and the ~~heartache~~ bullshit. What he actually did was, also, granted, laughing at Itou in the face, but maybe not for as long as warranted, so Itou had the chance to put on this face and these eyes like he was really in some tough spot that had Takashi trailing off and demanding payment in food and goods for his troubles.

Still, Takashi should have at least asked for the elevator pitch, the sneak preview, as it were, of what he would be helping out with before succumbing to the lure of restaurant sushi—not because of, thank you for nothing Riko, his eyes or something, because Itou had small eyes okay, tiny eyes, eyes that got squinty when he was mad or was preparing to fight, eyes that opened fractionally and teared up—what the actual fuck—when he got ~emotional. And when Itou got emotional, Takashi always felt compelled to disclaim to every passerby that despite appearances _no_ , they were not friends, he was not in cahoots with this pussy, and felt so uncomfortable that all he could really do was shoving Itou’s face out of his so he would stop feeling uncomfortable. It rarely worked.

He was chomping down the last of the sushi—imitation crabmeat, but the good kind so that was alright—when Itou went all solicitous again and smiled placatingly. It was weird, so Takashi told him so, and told him to quit acting like a girl and spit it out already.

“That’s sexist,” Itou mumbled.

“Well this has been delicious, pleasure doing business with you, but girls’ tennis is in five minutes and I’m not missing out on those short, _short_ -“

“School’s not over, you can’t go anyway,” Itou whined, “but, um, I mean, sit down and try not to freak out.”

“What,” Takashi barked, mind running restlessly, if Itou got into some shit with the yakuza then he would have duked it out alone like a crazy motherfucker, and if it was domestic disagreements with Kyoko then Takashi would’ve been the last person on earth Itou would go to for advice—his loss.

Itou dug out an envelope from his jacket, love letter, looked like, which, seriously, was he trying to mess around with another girl, not that Takashi disapproved, just Itou didn’t seem the type to cheat, and didn’t seem the type to wave a red flag in front of a bull, in this case Takashi, who hadn’t got a single girl to his play book. Bastard knew this.

Itou scowled half-heartedly, “Just read it please.”

It was some seriously sappy shit, and the handwriting smacked of trying too hard, like shaky indecisive stuff, from someone who had shit calligraphy but wanted to lead the concerned party into believing otherwise.

He hated her. But somehow, not.

“So?” Takashi flipped the letter casually, “What does this girl look like? Must be hot.”

“That’s not the point,” Itou resumed his indignant squawking, taking a long breath and Takashi prepared himself for a diatribe, “The point is I went to talk to her but that’s not my fault because I personally turn down all of them-“

“The point,” Takashi said, hands on his ears.

“I kind of told her that I was seeing someone else, but she didn’t believe me and demanded to see Kyoko, but she was apparently the sister of this yakuza boss and I can’t put Kyoko in that kind of danger.”

“Just date her and dump her if she’s ugly,” Takashi shrugged, “if she’s cute then Kyoko’ll understand that a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

Itou stared at him, “No!”

“Well what do you want me to do about it?” He snapped, annoyed.

Itou averted his eyes, “If _Kyoko_ ’s not going to go as my girlfriend, then,” he trailed off, apparently expecting Takashi to pick up on the train of thought. And he kind of sneaked a look at Takashi’s face, blushing, what the fuck.

“Oh no,” Takashi whispered, backing off, “ask Yuichi, he’s both shorter and less good-looking, so wouldn’t he be more believable?”

“C’mon, he’s weaker than Kyoko,” Itou said, “and not as easily bought by food as you are.”

“So you’re saying I’m _both dispensable and cheap_?” Takashi acted affronted, that’s the only reason he _felt_ affronted, really.

“Wait, no,” Itou balked, “Well I thought about asking Riko-chan but, I guess you wouldn’t like that either.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Takashi scowled.

The look Itou gave him was an exasperated one. “ _You_ , okay, but I still won’t ask her. Would you do this one favor for me and we’ll call it even on the scooter?”

Ouch.

Takashi thought that Itou was going to hold the scooter thing over him forever, like, even ten years from now when he would be making tons of money diamond mining and offered to pay back the cash, and Itou would be a starving cop or an elementary teacher and still be all “no, forgive and forget, let’s just hang out,” because that was the kind of bastard he was, making others think he was this noble samurai and making Takashi look like a jackass. And now Itou was making them even and it still seemed like he was doing Takashi this huge favor, like Takashi woke up every day with a fucking ruined scooter weighing heavy on his mind or something. But _hello_ , have you met Takashi Mitsuhashi?

“You’d better not take that back,” he grumbled.

See, here? Here was where it all went downhill.

He trailed home feeling strangely empty.

***

“I was thinking of recycling the blond wig,” Itou whispered conspiratorially, even though it was just the two of them on the roof again, “still in the drama room right? I’ll go get it.”

“Uh,” Takashi said.

“Also I thought about calling Imai in for backup, but maybe you wouldn’t want him to see you in costume,” Itou plowed on.

“About that wig,” Takashi said, fast, hoping Itou didn’t catch what, “I may have held onto it.”

The fucker didn’t stop laughing until Takashi seemed about to stomp off. There was snot. Takashi would concede greater net embarrassment this time around, but it was still just shy of too close to call since Itou did burst into periodic fits throughout the day.

***

The girl took one look at him and said, “Really, your girlfriend is taller than you?”

“The best girlfriends are,” Itou said confidently, like the fucker thought about this, while Takashi said, at the same time, “See, see? Everybody could tell I’m taller,” because it’s long been a bone of contention before this girl even showed her face okay?

They both looked at each other incredulously.

The girl waved her hand, and a suit clad actual henchman actually handed her a manila folder, “Takashi Mitsuhashi,” she read, unimpressed, “quote friend, unquote. Bad influence. This picture of Takashi Mitsuhashi bears an uncanny resemblance to you, Kyoko.”

“ _Quote friend unquote_ ,” muttered Takashi, “and hey! Takashi Mitsuhashi is very manly and handsome and that is an unflattering photo. Your stalker obviously knows fuck all about lighting.”

“Mitsuhashi’s not that bad,” Itou sighed, weary and exasperated and _that_ didn’t sober Takashi up, no sir. It was the weird chandelier on the ceiling and for that matter the fucking fact that they were in a ballroom and a petite goth chick was staring them down from her balcony.

“You haven’t answered my—“ she said.

“You made a statement,” Takashi stuck his hand into his skirt pockets—the girls’ uniforms were surprisingly functional, “you didn’t ask any—“

“Itou, why did you disrespect me by bringing your cross-dressing male friend here?” Takashi made an outraged noise (“It’s not like that,” he clawed his face, “even if it was I would never go by the name ‘Kyoko’,”) “You are not gay.”

 “Sure I am,” said Itou, his voice cracking a little, and Takashi choked on air.

This? This was why Takashi didn’t allow other people to make plans while he stuffed his face.

 “Prove it,” the girl commanded haughtily, like no one told her that her size mattered in throwing her weight around. (It didn’t.)

“You want a show?” Takashi leered excessively—probably looking like a Frankenstein reject, not that he’d been told, much. He took off the wig.

She considered them, giving too-long once-overs and eventually reached the verdict of, “Sure, why not? But you are nowhere near man enough for Itou.”

This? This was the point of no return.

This? This was when Takashi growled, seized the collar of the kappa’s obscenely fitted uniform and slapped his fucking lips onto the kappa’s fucking lips and went for it, pedal on full gas, no brakes.

It turned out eight o’clock soaps are really terrible materials to draw upon, and that the kappa despite having been attached to a human female at the hips for one year and going now didn’t have a lick of experience on his side either. It would be satisfying, for some obvious reasons and some not so obvious ones that Takashi would not touch, ever, with a ten-foot furry pole, except now it’s all teeth knocking and lips bruising and they could really use some experience and/or semblance of authenticity.

He was still busy being mortified when Itou gamely stuck a wet, warm tongue in his mouth. Then he gasped and stumbled back and let go of the shirt, but Itou caught him by his elbow and he didn’t have time to be mortified anymore. His hand did find time however, to clutch at the front of Itou’s shirt, near the—huge, solid—shoulders entirely out of its own volition.

His eyes also seemed to have closed out on their own accord.

The girl coughed weakly, her voice slightly high, “that is a show and a half, I think.”

Mortification returned with a vengeance. Takashi shoved Itou away—who looked _ruined_ , fuckfuckfuck—and fucking ran out of the place, back down the rocky, tiny path that led to the mansion that had had Itou and him knocking shoulders and trading whispered battle plans and generally being unaware of the horror awaiting them. He burst through the heavy gates and took off in the direction of the subway and didn’t stop to take a much needed breath until he no longer heard familiar footsteps in hot pursuit behind him.

***

He spent the next day wandering around Chiba, dejected, and thinking if he willed the k-i-s-s hard enough it would go away.

He spent the day after that horizontal, burrowed under two layers of fleece and pretending to be grievously ill and conveniently asleep when a friend from school called for him.

It didn’t go away.

The calls never stopped coming until his mom threatened to call the cops.

The day after the phone calls the kappa turned up at his front door, asking for his friend and why he wasn’t coming to school and was he alright, and could he see him, please? Takashi’s mom, because she’s an unsympathetic bitch, poked her head into his room and yelled at him to get ready for school unless he wanted to be scrambling for odd jobs on the streets two years early, because out of the house if you are throwing your free education down the drain, mister.

Takashi left via bathroom window. Too bad Itou spent the last year as his lackey and was waiting outside said window with a shit eating grin on his face, and decades later still Takashi would deny deny deny when Itou told the story that he blushed beet red and to the tips of his ears.

“Listen,” Itou called, strangled, when Takashi was going to run for his life again, “Damn it Mitsuhashi, listen,” and something in the tone of his voice made Takashi’s chest seize and Takashi’s feet stop, mid-motion.

“I broke up with Kyoko,” he said, and that got Takashi fish-eyed startled like he hadn’t been trying to school that expression from his face for hours upon hours in front of the mirror.

“You moron,” Takashi managed, hoarse, and then “ _Why_ ,”

“I thought you and Riko-chan, and me and Kyoko-chan were _it_ , for the longest time,” Itou said blithely, “I never questioned myself.”

“ _Riko_?” Takashi screeched, “what the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Shut up,” Itou said, “your girly scream is making me distracted, I want to say something here.”

Takashi was momentarily too enraged to speak.

“Was that your first kiss,” Itou asked.

Takashi still found himself incapable of speech. Itou’d better not have expected an answer to that question.

“I need to know,” Itou continued but no longer confident, like he was worried about Takashi’s _feelings_ , “I, was it? I had no idea—“

“Stop right there,” Takashi staggered back and held out a curled fist at the same time, unable to decide whether to run again to pummel Itou into the ground, “I’m not…what the fuck are you…you can’t be seriously thinking about you… Don’t you think of yourself so highly, I’m not some fucking blushing—“

“It _is_ ,” Itou whispered, seeming to not actually listen to him because the bastard looked _smug_ out of all things, inordinately pleased with himself and _hopeful_ in a way that was like taking a sledgehammer against Takashi’s chest.

“So what,” Takashi scrabbled at the wall behind his back, “all that means is you’re not walking out of here alive.”

Itou took a stride toward him, and then another—the most harmless looking predator in the world, “I have a less bloody suggestion.”

“I don’t want to hear, it,” Takashi shouted, his fingers more frantically blunting his nails on the paint, “Stay there if you know what’s good—I mean it! Stay right where you are!”

Itou was so close Takashi could feel his breath on his face, “ _You’re_ supposed to be the smart one. You’re supposed to be the one figuring this stuff out first.”

For reasons Takashi couldn’t explain, he averted his eyes and stared a hole into the ground instead of socking Itou one in the stomach, except no, he could explain it, it was because all of his nerve endings were on fire and having Itou’s eyes on him was going to make them spontaneously combust. He also felt like puking.

“I want to try it again,” Takashi knew Itou grinned, could hear it from the way the syllable shaped, and fuck it, sly was a look that never fit the bastard’s face, “I think you do too.”

Itou cupped his jaws, fingers unbearably gentle and that was what did it, made him flinch away, put his muscles under his control again, finally. He gave Itou a sharp, wrenching shove. Itou fell on his ass like he hadn’t expected it, which Takashi was ignoring no matter what.

Takashi ran the hell out of there.

***

“I think I’ve been going about this all wrong,” the-one-who’s-dead-to-Takashi said contemplatively, having cornered him at his waiting tables job. He’d just decided to pursue something more practical than a high school diploma at the Nanahou family café, per the hag’s threat to throw him out.

“Get your face out of here,” he clenched his hand on table two’s lemonade.

“I think you’re acting just like a girl who’s regretting she put out on the first date,” Itou rested the aforementioned face on his hand, making himself comfortable.

Which made the punch to the too-high cheekbones perfectly justifiable. Takashi drew his fist back, heaving like he’d just run a marathon, his knuckles ringing from the impact. The whole café was tuning in on them now, and in a second his manager was going to fire him but that was still a preferable prospect—he wouldn’t even kick or scream or bargain for his keep—compared with whatever else might happen if he weren’t rescued, plucked by  a benign higher power from this spot.

Itou was sprawled backward over the disgusting velvet seat, surveying his injuries with the air of the extremely disinterested, “Therefore I should take some responsibility.”

“I told you,” Takashi half-growled, “I’m not some blushing—“

“Why’re you acting like one then?”

“That’s got nothing to do with…that’s just sick,” Takashi spat, scathing, “you’re just sick,” but as soon as the words were out of his mouth he wanted to swallow them back. _Saying them_ made him sick, a lurching that was entirely different from the way Itou usually made his stomach tie itself up in inconvenient knots.

“We both know you’re the girl,” Itou said, relentless, “that’s why, isn’t it, because then you’d be the girl,” and Takashi wasn’t stupid, there was real hurt there, and intent to hurt, and neither of them wanted that at all. If he was as honest with himself as possible without skating too close to the cliff, he’d say he was scared, fucking terrified of losing what they had, because Takashi couldn’t imagine school without Itou, only he gave up that too, gave up school, so he already knew, he did.

“Get out of here,” Takashi grabbed Itou by the elbow, touching him voluntarily for the first time in a week. He was always faster and stronger in bursts, but Itou was still too easy to handle, and when Takashi snuck back a look, in between dragging him up and toward the door and resolutely avoiding eye contact with any other patrons, Itou was grinding his teeth and had his lashes flutter closed, like he gave up, too tired to tolerate Takashi’s shit anymore.

Once they were out of the store, Itou shrugged him off. Takashi anticipated it, used the force to pull him close. His fingers dug into the bones of Itou’s wrist. Itou’s eyes were startled into vulnerable, and Takashi thought he didn’t want anyone else to see that expression. Their breaths were matching but not slowing, and Takashi tittered forward, leaning into the too-warm shared space.

It was apparently the day for all the revelations that were boiling under the surface and turning over, nauseating, in his head, only Itou seemed to have gotten them express in the post.

There was also the fact that they were standing in front of a coffee shop, so he slid his hand to clutch at Itou’s fingers. The blood roaring in his ears made him forget feeling stupid as he led them into an alley.

Itou beamed so openly that Takashi felt secondhand embarrassment, or just shyness having it directed at him. He swore he’d make an effort to be honest with himself so things fucked up like this couldn’t sneak up on him anymore.

“Shut your face,” he said, a grin creeping up dangerously. He pressed Itou by the chest to the wall.

“You’re still the girl,” Itou said, slanting his head for a kiss, one hand behind Takashi’s neck guiding him in. At the first touch Itou closed his eyes but Takashi kept watch, hungry, took in the way Itou’s brows’ furrowed in concentration, the way he surged forward involuntarily when Takashi scraped his teeth on Itou’s lower lip, because Itou might have had five days to sleep on this shit but Takashi’s still the one with all the talents in this relationship.

“Takashi,” Itou rasped, and fuck, that was the first time he called him that, lumped in together with the first time that voice had been directed at him, and it went straight to his dick. Takashi’s hand had migrated to Itou’s hip, down his thigh, slotting it between Takashi’s own, warm and solid and living and Takashi inhaled sharply. Itou caught his tongue, latched onto it, tried to suck Takashi’s brain out through it.

He still had them online for all of the five seconds it took to say, “You’re taking me to the movie and paying for my lunch from now, then.”

“Bitch,” Itou groused happily, muffled into his mouth, “I reserve the right to call you my bitch.”

***

Epilogue

“San-chan,” Riko yelled over Utada Hikaru’s chorus, “grab me a soda and take a break.”

Riko was still the only person who called him San-chan, simultaneously ill-advisedly unafraid of him and close enough to think she was allowed. Shinji said that the two were probably correlated, but Shinji also tried calling him San-chan once and fuck, was it an effective boner killer.

“As soon as I’m done with my shift in two hours,” Takashi yelled back, but he was already making for the back to get Kouichi to sub in. At least he didn’t deign to make her an actual drink.

“Aw,” she said, “and I was going to leave this new bartender a huge tip.”

“You are going to leave me all the cash in your wallet only this isn’t a mugging, okay,” he pushed her out of the bar and into the street and into the cool summer air. A cop glared at them, but this part of town, two figures huddled close, right. Takashi flipped off the cop.

“So,” Riko observed, rolling her eyes, “so.”

“So,” parroted Takashi.

“When were you going to tell me,” she seemed to be trying to work up some indignation but failed and smirked instead, too giddy about upping one over him.

“Not in the near or foreseeable future,” he lied.

“You!” she pouted, and made for his ears, twisting them painfully, “pain in my ass, bane of my existence, Itou had to tell me where to ambush you.”

“Ah,” Takashi said, “the bane of _my_ existence.”

“Did you really,” she said anxiously, because that was really what she tracked him down to ask.

He suddenly craved a cigarette.

“Takashi Mitsuhashi,” Riko hissed.

“So what,” Takashi breathed, “it’s just a nice word, an artificial construct, a religious institution—”

She pulled him into a tight hug, her deceptively thin arms thrown around his head and his shoulders, “I’m so glad. I just never thought you would admit it, how important he is to you.”

“Gee thanks,” he mumbled into her hair.

“You know you are not in the best position to call people out for unfair assessment of your character right?” she laughed, letting go of him, “But seriously, it’s going to be hard for both of you.”

“Fuck the law,” he slumped against the wall, and then remembered that Shinji didn’t like the concrete chafing his clothes.

“Stop pretending to not be thrilled that you’re engaged,” Riko rolled her eyes, “Were you afraid I would throw you a bachelorette party,” she asked slyly.

“Fuck no,” Takashi lied, “I’m all for free food, don’t you know.”

***

“Sometimes it feels like I don’t deserve him,” Takashi said.

The brat stared at him, made a show of looking around to see if he was talking to someone else, then stared at him some more. Takashi really couldn’t blame the brat.

“Sit down and shut up and grunt noncommittally in the right places,” Takashi sighed.

“Not on your life,” Ryou groused, but sat his ass down. “Wait, did you think I would identify with your feelings of inadequacy? In my relationship with Riko?”

It was not like he had a choice, was the thing. Imai and Tanigawa obviously deserved each other, being equal fail boats in life in general, and fuck if he was consulting—we call it pouring our hearts out, San-chan—Imai, who took extremely unsubtle prodding from them all to be able to open his fucking eyes and see a sad puppy trailing after him everywhere. Takashi after finally overcoming the mental images masterminded plans in increasing bashing-head-against-wall quality. Imai’s elephant-sized obliviousness broke in the one involving visual aids and a rough kiss and possibly, if Riko was to be believed, a sacrificial offering.

“Yes?” What is there to be confused about? “You don’t think you are in the same league with her? She owns a dojo.”

Ryou cast a withering glance at the winding party—Riko was shrieking because she thought everyone in the building couldn’t hear her because she got stupid when she got drunk. Ryou obviously wanted to be anywhere but on the veranda, with Takashi, and do anything, but talk to him. Ten minutes ago Takashi was murmuring innuendos into Shinji’s mouth, so it’s not like he made an upgrade in conversational partners either.

“She didn’t settle, if that’s what you’re asking,” Ryou huffed, after a while, muttering _ass_ indiscreetly under his breath. “She could do objectively better, I guess, but no one’s settling.”

“Isn’t that the definition of settling,” Takashi said, worrying at his cashmere sleeve—Shinji obsessively dressed him up for the night.

“She owns a freaking dojo,” Ryou examined his palms, “and she’s funny and stubborn and sometimes still in love with you. And I’m still a freaking catch.”

“You are a five-foot-five runt who’s barely worked through her dojo’s set of dumbbells two months ago,” Takashi gaped.

“I have self-confidence falling out of my ass,” Ryou sighed, “don’t foist your insecurity on me, that’s why I’m a catch, but maybe it’s because she loves me that I’m a catch.”

***

Takashi was prostrate, face down on the couch when Shinji poked his stomach.

“The dishes could really wait until tomorrow,” Takashi pleaded, “Or, crazy idea, for once you could call for some professional catering and spare yourself the agonizing pain of seeing me break and chip the china you picked out.”

“Get up,” Shinji kicked at his legs, ruthless, “Up up up.”

“Hnng,” he wiggled his head deeper into the arm of the couch, “Or what?”

Shinji shuffled into the kitchen, and he heard dishes clanging, “No consequences but my disappointment. And did I mention you looked hot in an apron?”

“God,” Takashi groaned, he swore the alcohol made him blush like a shoujo manga heroine, not that he read any of that shit, “I’m coming.”

There was a noise from the kitchen that sounded like a bizarre combination of a porcelain bowl being dropped into the sink and splashing water and Shinji’s choking on detergent fumes. Takashi felt his face burn harder.

“I mean I’m coming _to help_ ,” he squawked, “ ** _to help_**.”

“Don’t front,” Shinji pulled himself together as Takashi shook off the sleepiness, the enormity of what just happened—they were non-legally binding-ly engaged!—and ambled over.

And because he was romantic, he was having discussion over dirty dishes.

“Sometimes I don’t understand why you put up with me,” he said in a rush, and made the bowls knock loudly together because he didn’t know if he actually wanted Shinji to hear him. Story of his life.

“Me too,” and for the longest second Takashi felt his insides plummet, unpleasantly, emphatically not the kind when they got an hour to themselves, back in college, and Shinji locked the door behind him with a click reverberating around the room, “I mean I don’t get why you stick with me sometimes, because at the end of the day I’m stick-in-the-ass boring and you’re…you, unpredictable and scarily smart and funny and,” Shinji considered a stain that was actually the floral print with too much interest, “meant for great things.”

“Huh,” Takashi stopped half-heartedly scrubbing down the pans, feeling his feet on firm ground for the first time in weeks, “I can’t argue with any of that.”

“Fucker,” Shinji swatted his ass with a detergent-bubbly hand.

-End


End file.
